During these three months in Frost Severing Valley, the Righteous and Demonic Seven Sects fought dozens of battles—large and small—over the Cold Abyss Token.
Yet whenever that Azure figure appeared at the edge of the battlefield, no matter how blood-crazed the combatants were, both sides would stop at once.
Silently, they would part and open a path, watching him pass through the battlefield and disappear into the depths of the icy mist.
Only after he was gone would the slaughter resume.
As though bound by an unspoken understanding.
Yun Che knew none of this.
After paying respects to his parents—if that pile of ruins could even be called a memorial—he carved out a crude cave dwelling along a cliffside, sat cross-legged, and began examining himself.
Examining this body that had become unfamiliar from within.
First, his spiritual power.
His Nine Nether Frost power had always been tyrannical—but never like this… never this unsettling.
On that night three months ago, he had killed twenty-seven people.
Not because his sword was fast.
Not because his techniques were exquisite.
Not even because he intended to kill.
They merely released killing intent in his presence—and the frost power surged forth on its own, turning them into ice statues.
It was a kind of instinct beyond words.
As though his spiritual power itself yearned for slaughter.
Yun Che did not understand.
Li Han did not understand either. The remnant soul of this former Nascent Soul cultivator, dormant for three hundred years, could only remain silent.
The three realms—Extremity, Dao, Origin—had vanished long before the ancient inheritances Li Han once knew were severed. Perhaps fragments remained in the libraries of Level Six cultivation nations—but such places were far beyond Yun Che’s reach.
He could only rely on himself.
He calmed his mind and looked inward into his dantian.
Two Nine Nether Frost cores revolved slowly like dark stars, faintly drawing toward one another, showing signs of merging. They were no longer purely Azure; a faint cyan radiance shimmered within them—the mark of Extremity power refined to its utmost.
What drew his attention more was the spiritual energy escaping from the cores. It was not a uniform mist, but countless nearly invisible Azure filaments. Each filament was hair-thin, yet carried an aura that made even him uneasy.
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“These filaments… are the essence of Extremity.”
He raised his right hand. Azure light flashed, forming a fist-sized sphere of Nine Nether Frost power suspended in midair.
The sphere was Azure throughout, filled with densely packed filaments writhing like living things.
A strange thought arose—
If these filaments were compressed further… impurities stripped away… leaving only the purest “Extremity”…
What would happen?
The moment the thought appeared, it could not be suppressed.
He clenched his hand.
The sphere trembled violently.
Veins bulged across his forehead; cold sweat streamed down. Forcing spiritual energy to its limit was a battle against the tolerance of his meridians.
The sphere shrank visibly.
Fist-sized.
Longan-sized.
Grain-sized.
Crack—
The sphere shattered. More than half the filaments collapsed under pressure. The remainder survived, but were far from “pure.”
Without hesitation, he infused more spiritual power.
Second compression.
Third.
Fourth…
Time passed unnoticed in the cave.
On the fifth day—
A grain-sized crystal, deep cyan with a hint of Azure, floated quietly in his palm.
No impurities. No visible filaments. They had been compressed so thoroughly they seemed to melt into uniform cyan light.
Yet holding it made his palm tingle numbly.
His body was warning him:
This can harm you.
He stepped outside.
At midnight, Frost Severing Valley lay silent beneath ice fog.
He tossed the crystal into a forest.
It struck a massive ancient tree—
Hiss—
The tree transformed instantly into ice crystal. Not surface frost—true conversion, from root to crown, in less than a thousandth of a breath.
Then an Azure ring of light exploded outward.
Within three hundred zhang, trees shattered, grass turned to dust, even insects beneath the soil perished.
Silence. Ice-blue desolation.
Yun Che stood at the edge. Even as his frost power automatically assimilated the invading chill, his legs went numb for several breaths.
He gazed at the devastation.
“This… can kill a Golden Core cultivator.”
Perhaps more.
He returned to refine more.
Over the next month, Yun Che shut himself inside the cave, repeating a single act:
Refine frost power. Compress filaments. Condense cyan crystals.
Success rate: thirty percent. Failure: seventy.
Failures devoured spiritual energy and effort—but he did not care.
Time was what he had most.
One month later—
Three crystals floated before him.
Each purer, subtler, more concealed.
But he sensed an invisible limit.
Whenever he condensed a fourth, one of the first three would dissolve.
“You may only hold three…”
Was it his cultivation?
Or Extremity itself?
A thought arose—
What if he merged them?
Two crystals touched.
No explosion.
They fused quietly into a darker crystal.
One remained.
He hesitated three breaths.
Then brought the third closer.
Three inches.
Two.
One—
Buzz—!!!
Blinding cyan light erupted!
Without hesitation, Yun Che activated Li Han’s teleportation mark and vanished.
A destructive Azure ring exploded outward—
Within a thousand zhang, everything turned to ice crystal.
When it ended, the cave was gone.
A mirror-smooth ice crater, one thousand zhang wide, remained.
“Two is the limit… three will explode.”
He rebuilt.
In the end—
Two merged crystals.
One single crystal.
Three in total.
Two composite beads, one solitary bead.
Less than half a month remained before the fifty-year transmission period Li Han had spoken of.
Yun Che sat in meditation, Extremity frost power circulating through his meridians—denser, colder… hungrier.
He summoned the Blood Fiend Sword.
Its blade glowed faint cyan, altered by his transformation.
He was about to refine it—
When his expression shifted.
Divine sense spread outward.
A hundred li away, more than a hundred sword lights were converging from all directions—clearly in pursuit of one person.
Yun Che frowned.
Not because of the pursuers.
But because of the one being hunted.
He knew him.
